Subtle Melancholia
by howliel
Summary: Summary: It's apparent that Raito-kun has a secret. But I find it unlikely that he is truly Kira. So what is his secret…And who is Kira?  L x Raito  Self harm, yaoi, lemon, possible rape/mentions of rape. Might be triggering.
1. Chapter 1

L was never one to show excessive interest in anything, especially not a murder suspect. He started, worked, solved, and finished a case, and then moved on to the next without hesitation or break. So why was he suddenly intrigued by the teenage boy on his monitor, whom he suspected of being Kira?

The cameras had been installed only a few hours ago, but L was already stationed before the monitors robotically, watching Raito Yagami's every move. He had been home less that twenty minutes, and L had seen several interesting behaviors already. Raito-kun had gone straight up to his room upon arrival home, and deposited his messenger bag at the foot of his bed. His room was curiously neat, unlike most teenage boys' rooms. The Japanese boy had pulled headphones on and had gone downstairs, L guessing to get something to eat, but only to sit on the kitchen counter and stare out the window. He had remained in this position for the remainder of the twenty minutes that he'd been home so far.

_He is sitting on the kitchen counter, looking out the window, completely alone in the house._ L noted silently, watching the boy's face.

Unlike the picture he'd seen of Raito Yagami, he was not tan and smiling. In fact, he looked depressed. His auburn hair had grown some, his skin had paled considerably, and there were noticeable shadows beneath the seventeen year-old's eyes, which were much darker than they'd first appeared. L glanced at Soichiro Yagami, the suspect's father. The man seemed uncomfortably still, but he didn't seem to notice the state of his son at all.

"Yagami-san." L murmured, and the man's eyes darted to him. It wasn't difficult to see the fear in the elder's eyes—the fear of L saying his son was Kira.

L subtly pointed out the growth of the hair that made Raito-kun seem slightly frazzled, the paleness of his skin, and the shadows beneath his eyes. Soichiro Yagami, however, had an excuse for each of the observations. His son was paler because the picture had been taken earlier in the school year, after Raito had spent the summer outdoors. His hair hadn't been cut for a while, and he stayed up long hours studying for exams.

On the screen, the suspect was starting to get down from the counter slowly. L turned his attention back to the boy, not bothering to give his father a reason for his questioning moments ago. Raito-kun went to the bathroom upstairs, when there had been a bathroom just down the hall from where he'd been sitting in the kitchen. Why go all the way upstairs just to use a restroom when another had been more convenient? Another curious action that Lawliet took note of.

Raito Yagami sat on the floor, his back pressed against the wall facing the drawers underneath the sink. He brought his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and then just sat there. He hadn't shut the door—it was wide open. He hadn't turned on the light, either.

L glanced at Soichiro Yagami again, and noticed that now he _was _noticing his son's odd behavior. The man was tense, eyes flicking from screen to screen, unsure of what to make of Raito's actions, or how to pass them off as usual. Lawliet redirected his eyes to the other task force members. Matsuda was bearing his normal confused, wide eyed look. The others were mixed between Soichiro's wariness and Matsuda's confusion.

The pale teen on the screen suddenly let out a long, loud sigh—the first sound he'd made since coming home. The detective swiftly leaned toward the monitor, alert. Raito-kun buried his forehead in his hands, starting to rock slightly.

"…Shit…" The teen muttered, and L didn't bother to acknowledge Soichiro's muffled gasp of surprise at the foul language. His eyes were trained on the wary face of the Kira suspect.

Raito lifted his head slowly, letting go of one leg to let it stretch out. His eyes were closed, but a tear was still sliding down his face. Soichiro noticed and became even more rigid than before. L studied the tear drop as it slid down and then dripped from Yagami-kun's chin. It was not joined by any other tears—only one had been shed.

"I-Is he crying..?" Matsuda asked moronically. L resisted the want to roll his eyes.

"Yes, Matsuda. He is crying."

"Why?"

_Is he really asking that in the same way a little child would? _"I do not know, Matsuda."

Raito lifted his music player and switched it to a different song.

Lawliet had a sneaking suspicion that Soichiro had noticed all the odd behavior before the cameras had been installed in his home, and had not mentioned them because of his fear of fathering a criminal. Perhaps it was the tenseness of the man, or the way Soichiro Yagami couldn't face the monitors directly that gave him the idea. Either way, L would exclude Yagami from parts of the investigation if it was deemed necessary.

It was quiet. So calm, peaceful, even... Raito knew that he shouldn't think of the house as quiet, seeing as how he had music blaring him deaf at the moment, but at least he was home alone. No motherly fretting, sisterly pestering, or even fatherly overseeing. He could finally be left alone.

His back was starting to ache from being pressed against the wall of the bathroom for so long, so he stood, stretched, and returned to the kitchen. The fridge was stocked with healthy foods; there was no hope for junk food in the cupboards, either. But he knew where something was. He trekked to the living room and flipped the couch over. Taped to the bottom was a very large variety of junk foods; Sayu stashed up as much sugar as she could—she had stashes all over the house in case their mother found one and mutilated it.

He picked out a small, thin chocolate bar and then set the couch back up the way it had been before. The chocolate was gone in the next few minutes and the wrapper was stuffed into Raito's shoe. It really wasn't worth getting Sayu caught if he just threw it in the trash, where their mother could easily see it. Sayu was annoying, but she wasn't harmful. Raito glanced at the phone on the kitchen counter on the way back to his room. Held under the corner of it was a folded piece of notebook paper, with Sayu's and his own name written on it.

The note bore his mothers neat, organized writing. _'Take out the trash. Your father won't be coming home tonight, and nor will I. I expect the house cleaner than I left it. Dinner is in the fridge, wash your dishes by hand; I don't want to waste water by using the washing machine for a few plates and forks. –Mom.'_

Raito set the note back under the phone for Sayu to read; he wouldn't use any dishes anyway. Whenever his parents weren't home, he never ate. He didn't feel the need to... Or frankly, the desire to eat, either.

The teen sighed and went up to his room. Even though it was his own room, he felt no privacy there. Even beneath his clothes, there was no privacy. The only place he could... No. He couldn't afford to think about such things. It was still daytime. Sayu would be looking for him the moment she walked in the door for help on whatever assignment was confusing _this _time. He couldn't take care of himself until Sayu was fed, tutored, and asleep.

Raito sat down at his old desk, took out a ball-point pen, and used it to open the secret compartment under the fake bottom of one of his desk drawers. Inside were two items. One of them was an orange, bulky envelope. The other was an old notebook with mud stains on the cover, and yellowed, water damaged pages. He pulled out the notebook and replaced the phony drawer bottom, along with the unconcealed contents of the drawer.

A lot of effort to hide an old notebook, but there was good reason for the work. The notebook... It was his soul. It was his pain, and fear, and his anger, and it was his trash can. It was the place he threw away all of his dangerous emotions, so that no one could ever see them.

The first blank page he could find was too close to the back cover; he'd have to go buy a new notebook. Of course he couldn't just buy _any _notebook. It had to be thicker, with a blank black cover, and it had to be bound. A spiral notebook was just too..._casual_ for something as important as this.

There was also the issue of money; he had no job, no way of earning an income. His parents would not pay him to do his chores, and he would be disgusting to ask. It was lucky enough as it was that they were not requiring rent of him. Occasionally, when they were running low on food at home and his mother couldn't go shopping yet, she would give him money for school lunches. He never bought any, of course, so he had a bit of money, added up with whatever he found on the sidewalks and in the hallways of school. Maybe, he might be able to get two notebooks. That would be...wonderful.

He put the tip of the pen down on the top line. The date appeared on the paper in vibrant blue ink, followed by the time. Raito started to feel peace calm him. Writing always soothed him. He went down to the next line, indented, and began to write.

_Nothing horrible happened today. A good day, I suppose. If anything could be 'good' anymore. Kira is still on the loose. __I didn't see him today..._

Raito closed his eyes and shook his head. He wanted to stop writing now, but he knew it was better to keep writing. If he bottled everything up, it hurt. So he continued to empty himself out onto the awaiting page.

_Does that mean he's sick? Or was it a signal to me? Does he want to meet up? I don't want to see him. I don't want to go, in case that's not what he meant, and I wait there all night, looking stupid. But... even worse... what if I were to go... and that is exactly what he wanted me to do? What if he's there... waiting for me?_

_My father is a policeman, and yet, he doesn't know that anything is wrong. My mother is supposed to know everything about her children, instinctively. But that woman knows nothing, at all. She senses none of what I feel. Is it because I empty my heart into these pages, so that my feelings are safe, locked away? Or is it because she doesn't care? Or that I do not really feel anything?_

_Nobody ever notices anything. Not that I barely eat, or that I rarely sleep. I've shut myself up in my room more and more. Gone out with friends, if they are truly friends, less often. What else is there to do, than to die? Up here, in my room, alone, with this paper serving as my heart? (Does that mean anyone could scribble out what I've written, and change it, so that the truth never existed?)_

_Who would notice one more night, out there, with him? Why does it hurt me alone, when no one else can feel it? Am I really, truly, that alone in the world? Am I really?_


	2. Chapter 2

[Warning: May be triggering, self harming in this chapter, mentions of past self harming and otherwise, intense angst on Raito's part. –Sorry about the wait/short chapter. Trying to do better.-]

By the end of the day, Soichiro Yagami evidently doubted that his son was as fine and normal as he so eagerly promoted him to be. The cameras had been able to magnify every word written in Raito-kun's journal, and everyone was pondering the meaning of each sentence, each phrase, and each word.

_'Kira is still on the loose. I didn't see him today…' _Was the suspect referring to Kira..? Was it possible that the teen wasn't Kira, and that he simply knew Kira? If so, was he Kira's ally? Or had Raito-kun switched the subject of the entry to someone else, someone who had nothing to do with Kira?

Whatever he'd been writing about, L thought it notable that he'd gone to such lengths to protect the notebook. And what had been in the envelope? He'd have to investigate the room in person, the next time he had a decent opportunity. It was a task he could not hand off to one of the others; the phony drawer bottom would surely be booby trapped. L supposed something would happen to anyone who tried to get to the concealed contents of the drawer without the ball point pen Raito-kun had been using. Plus, if Soichiro-san were to be the one going through the contents of the drawer, even if he'd gotten past the booby trap-or traps-, how would he handle what he found? What if it were to be evidence against his son—evidence that Raito was Kira? The man would have to be excluded from this part of the investigation, for sure.

One by one, the task force members drifted up to their own hotel rooms. When Lawliet was alone again, excluding Watari's company, he was free to watch Raito-kun's every move without background noise. His younger sister had come home shortly after he'd returned the notebook to its hiding place. She'd heated up her dinner, eaten it, cleaned her dishes, and then pestered Raito-kun into tutoring her through her homework. She'd spent hours on the phone, and then she'd gone to bed after sneaking a few bars of chocolate into her belly. As with Raito-kun, the wrappers went into her shoes, which she put under her bed before she climbed under her covers.

On another monitor, Raito was following a much different routine. While his sister ate dinner, he took a portion of the dinner out of the fridge and flushed it down the toilet. He washed his dishes, did his homework, taught Sayu-chan through her own work, and then went back up to his room, where he'd read a fantasy novel until a bit passed ten. Soichiro had left the room to go up to bed only moments before his son shut his novel and stood. _Does he somehow know his father's schedule, to be able to start moving around only after Soichiro-san has gone to bed? _Lawliet bit his thumb, leaning closer to the screen.

Raito-kun slid off his bed with the utmost caution, and walked to his door, not making a sound. Before he opened his door, he turned out his light and listened. A few doors away, and on another monitor, Sayu-chan was rolling around on her bed, muttering in her sleep. Raito-kun opened his door and went to the bathroom across the hall. He shut the door this time, locking it. He flicked on the light and went to kneel before the cupboards under the sink. Lawliet watched intensely. The suspect opened the cupboards, and reached up, towards the bottom of the sink. A few moments of what seemed to be concentration, the teen pulled out a tiny, folded piece of paper that still had duct tape stuck to it.

_Another hiding place… What could he be hiding this time? He's already hidden sweets under the couch, and a diary under a phony desk drawer bottom. _L mused, nose only a few inches from the screen now.

The brunette suspect placed the little piece of paper on the counter, stepped back, and began to take off his shirt. He hadn't taken a shower yet today; perhaps that was why he was taking off his clothes. However, Lawliet seriously doubted Soichiro-san's explanations of the boy's appearance by now. Why wait to shower until your younger sibling was asleep? Also, he hadn't grabbed a towel. Were the insomnia, lack of eating, paleness, and possibly the content of that folded piece of paper that the brunette had concealed connected together..?

Raito-kun was very thin. His ribs were starting to show, and his belly hadn't been filled for a few weeks, at least. He was pale, but there were no other imperfections. A small twinge of unwelcome relief found its way into L, and he killed it instantly. He could _not _feel anything during this case. He needed to keep his prudence, and remain perfectly professional. Worrying about a suspect was forbidden.

Raito started to unbutton his pants. Perhaps he really was taking a shower or a bath…but probably not. His pants slid down, and his legs were pale, but bare. Another twinge of relief appeared, which was killed faster than the last. Next, he started to slide down his boxer briefs. What they had hidden made Lawliet bite down hard on his thumb, drawing blood. Even Watari seemed shocked at the sight on the monitors.

Scars, and self inflicted cuts marred his skin. Some were small, and others likely had caused him to fall unconscious. The first thing L had to wonder was if this self mutilation had to do with why the notebook had been so thoroughly hidden. No doubt it had entries on this subject. Of course Lawliet knew what was in the folded paper, even before Raito-kun pulled the razor blade out from inside it.

Watari reached for the phone, but Lawliet caught his wrist. "Ryuuzaki?" The man used the alias, ever cautious. He was frowning deeply, obviously very upset with the suspect being a self harmer.

"To interfere now would certainly damage the investigation, if not blow it. Allow him to do this. If it seems he will overdo it, or attempt to kill himself, I, myself, will intervene." Lawliet said blankly, letting go of the elderly man's wrist. Watari sighed, but nodded and retracted his hand, leaving to bring L some sweets and a bandage for his bleeding thumb.

Back on the monitor, Raito-kun was plugging the drain of the bathtub. He turned the water knobs to get a temperature that caused the bathroom to steam up and slid his blade from the counter. He held the metal between his thumb and index finger, careful not to injure his hand. The brunette stepped into the tub and sat down, waiting silently for the tub to fill. He closed the shower curtain. He was very, _very _skilled at hiding his self-mutilating habits. Lawliet leaned forward, eyes locked on the Kira suspect's face. The boy was untensing in the water, pent-up stress of the day melting away in the steam. Briefly the thought crossed L's mind of having Watari drive him to Soichiro Yagami's home. He'd go up the bathroom after picking the lock on the front door, and would pick the bathroom door open as well. The teen would be shocked at first, afraid, angry… But L would take the blade from him and throw it away, and then would explain to him that—_NO. _Lawliet murdered that thought and went back to focusing on the suspect.

Raito-kun's eyes were closed, his posture relaxed. He'd placed the blade on the side of the tub. His feet were used to turn the knobs until no more water entered the tub. By now, Watari had returned, and was securing a bandage to Lawliet's bleeding thumb.

"Do you believe he is Kira, Ryuuzaki?" the elderly man asked, sliding a tray of sweets toward the raven haired insomniac and looking at the monitor again.

L lifted a piece of chocolate pocky and bit off the tip, considering. "The possibility is less than it was in the beginning of the investigation, but there is still a possibility," he said, before chewing slowly on the sweet. "And possibilities must never go overlooked."

Lawliet ignored a stain of chocolate on his bandage in favor of Raito-kun's slight shifting in the tub.

He was reaching for the blade.

Raito could feel the corners of his vision blurring over. It was so…_simple _to cry while he did this. The tears came and went as easily as breathing, as blinking. When he cut, the tears didn't cut off his air like they would if he'd been doing anything else. He didn't even make a sound when he cut, apart from his breathing.

He only did a few cuts at a time, and they couldn't be too deep, or long. If they were…his cover could be blown. And he couldn't—_wouldn't_ deal without cutting. It was the perfect escape from the horror he lived each and every day. Not even sleep could comfort him the way blades could; pain could still find him in his dreams. The few times he'd cut too deep and had passed out, he'd barely gotten lucky by his mother being caught in traffic and his father being away on business. Sayu had learned that she shouldn't disturb Raito in the tub, but she probably guessed he was doing something more…teen-like.

After three small red lines had appeared on his hip, Raito put the blade back on the side of the tub. They were about an inch long, and barely deeper than a cat scratch. He dunked his head down below the water, closing his eyes and relishing in the utter silence that consumed him.

Raito found peace in times like these. Regular stress melted away in the hot water of a bath, pent-up pain and anger cut away with a secret blade, no parents to interrupt and sister asleep… Absolute serenity slowed his heart beat and steadied his mind. He'd needed this for a long time. But his mother hadn't gone out overnight in a couple weeks, and she'd have thrown a fit about Raito locking the bathroom door, so this hadn't been an option. He'd had to settle for a paper cut between his fingers, tripping and hitting his head, spilling hot tea on himself… All ordinary accidents for usual people to have, except, they hadn't been accidents. He'd passed them off as small incidents, but each little bit of it had been precisely to cause him some relief. Not as good as this, but it'd had to do.

When the water had cooled and all the steam had settled, he stepped from the tub and dried, careful not to touch his new cuts. The teen wrapped a towel around his waist while the tub drained, and then he put his blade back in its home—taped to the underside of the sink, on the side away from view. He collected his clothes, turned out the light, walked to his room silently, shut his door, turned on his light, and dropped his clothes on the foot of his bed. Some people would call him a perfectionist, or would say he had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in truth, he was just extremely careful not to get caught doing what he was doing. He removed his towel and pulled on freshly bleached underwear and then cotton pajama pants.

Damp, bare-chested, and silent, Raito moved his clothes to the hamper near his bedroom door, and then again turned out his light. This time, he didn't leave. He instead went to his bed, pulled back the cover, and slipped into it. His head hit the pillow, but he didn't sleep—he'd be lucky if he rested at all tonight. And resting easy was out of the question. Until, at least, Kira was captured by L and his task force. L… Raito mentally urged the detective on, even though he had never met him. L-even if the two never once laid eyes on each other-would be Raito's hero.

_'How cheesy…'_ Raito thought to himself, disgusted. How could he be so shallow? Everywhere, people were being murdered by Kira, and Raito was lying in bed, selfishly thinking of himself.

He turned on his side, glowering at the wall. Capturing Kira was L's priority. L needed to protect all of Kira's probable victims; he would be saving Raito without even knowing it—without knowing Raito.

Sharp raps on his window made the teen cringe and stifle a gasp with his hand. A flash of memory crossed his mind, a section of his journal entry from earlier. _Does he want to meet up? I don't want to see him. I don't want to go, in case that's not what he meant, and I wait there all night, looking stupid. But... even worse... what if I were to go... and that is exactly what he wanted me to do? What if he's there... waiting for me?_

"Open up!" Came a mocking, carefree voice from outside. Someone had climbed the tree on the side of the house to get to Raito's window…

A metal hand was clutching at the teen's insides as he forced himself up, and to the window. Pulling back the curtains, the hand yanked painfully in his gut as he looked at the evil, grinning face. _Kira._


	3. Chapter 3

Kira's eyes were alight with mischeif and cruel pleasure. He pushed his way into the room, looking more like a beast that had just cornered its prey than a man. Raito shrunk back from him, silent. Oh god, no...

Raito cringed with the man chuckled at his fear.

"Poor little Light," the man sneered, advancing.

Behind the monitors, Lawliet leaned forward. His nose was almost touching the screens. A visitor...An unwelcome one, from the way Raito trembled. Was this the one who Raito had written about? The one that had wanted to meet up...

"Ryuuzaki," Watari breathed. This could very well be Kira. It was quite logical... Lawliet ignored the elderly man, as the visitor was now speaking to Raito.

"Get a pen," the possible-Kira said. He pulled a bag off his back and it hit the floor with a soft thud. Raito scrambled to his desk and grabbed a pen. He said nothing, just fearfully doing as this man said.

L frowned. For some reason, that didn't sit well with him.

"Is your sister home~?" The man held his hand out for the pen, which Raito quickly handed over.

"Y-yeah..." the boy whispered, eyes wide. His visitor grinned madly, a look L knew too well to be the smile of a murderer.

"Maybe I should visit her...Or are you going to show me those reports?"

Raito hurriedly went to his schoolbag and drew out a file. He opened it while the unnamed man turned on the light. Lawliet zoomed in on the files-court documents on alleged criminals. This looked more and more like the man who was visiting Raito was Kira-which would explain how the boy's hand shook slightly when he handed the documents over. The man pulled a black notebook out of his bag. 'DEATHNOTE' was etched into the cover. He looked at the photos and names of the criminals in the reports Raito had printed off and wrote down the names in the so-called 'DEATHNOTE'.

L moved to a small laptop a few feet away from the Raito monitors and tapped on a few keys. Slowly, within ten minutes, notifications started coming in of a new wave of sudden prisoner deaths. Lawliet's eyes snapped back to the monitor that showed Kira and Raito. Raito was standing near his bed, looking terrified. Why didn't he do anything...? A scream for help, or a phone call...Lawliet remembered the threat to Sayu and wondered. Had Kira backed up a promise to Raito before?

He felt there was a connection between the self-harming and Raito being forced to assist Kira. He'd have to keep the boy out of trouble...Why, though? Lawliet wondered over his fascination with the kid for a moment, before shaking away the thought. Kira was talking.

"Is that all?"

"Yes," Raito whispered. Kira shook his head, tut-tutting.

"Not nearly enough. You know what that means."

Raito took a step back from the man, eyes widening. "N-no...please...not again..."

The man chuckled, advancing and pushing Raito back onto the bed. L's finger pressed a key exactly at that point, triggering an alarm that woke the entire Task force and mobilized it.


End file.
